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During any incident people in the area respond. Then one calls for help and the first responders or local police and fire departments respond. LOCAL COMMUNITY RESPONDS

If they can not handle the situation they call other fire/police departments. LOCAL LEVEL

If they can not handle the situation then the Governor utilizes their state national guard. STATE LEVEL (when did this happen?)

If the state can not handle it they can request help from other states. STATE LEVEL

At this point it is probable that the DOD or federal government would be active since all military members are part of the total force.

I am in Alabama now and the evacuees from Mississippi and LA have high hopes. They state "god is with them and they are alive." There are Red Cross stations over a 300 mile radius from New Orleans.

Driving through Pensacola I saw a large station handing out food and water. At the hotels, which are filled with LA/MS evacuees people say they will rebuild and New Orleans will be better. Obviously some dont know what they are going back to and thay have serious challenges ahead.

Listening to Pensacola, Florida (IVAN veterans) they stressed that FEMA is not nor has it ever been a complete first responder. They arrived 3 days after IVAN and did what they could, but the community/state had a plan and implemented it successfully.

Skeedaddy- Good post. The simple fact is that Daddy Bush and Uncle Cheney told him to appoint a guy whose idea of emergency management was how to get the horse poop out of the arena that he was responsible for. Leadership continues to be exhibited by W. Thanks…

[quote=noggin]Skeedaddy- Good post. The simple fact is that Daddy Bush and Uncle Cheney told him to appoint a guy whose idea of emergency management was how to get the horse poop out of the arena that he was responsible for. Leadership continues to be exhibited by W. Thanks.....[/quote]

Let's be serious for a minute. Brown did just fine and dandy last year in <?:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Florida when they were hit by 3 major storms in 6 or so weeks. Perhaps it's because he didn't have to deal with abject failures like the Mayor of New Orleans and the Gov of LA. Brown also went through a Senate confirmation with the Democrats running the show at the time and he served as the General Council for FEMA before he took over. <?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Brown became a lightening rod because the Feds seemed slow BUT it was the Mayor who didn’t evacuate people when asked (24 hours after every other local government did) and then put poor people at the Superdome with no food, no water and no security to stop anarchy from breaking out. It was the Governor of Louisiana that refused to allow the Red Cross in the Superdome to help people trapped there and refused to allow National Guard troops from other states to help out. She also refused to allow for a single command of the various NG units in New Orleans.

Had the locals not made a monumental screw-up of the situation during the first 24-72 hours that they were responsible for you wouldn’t have heard a peep about FEMA’s response from anyone.

Do you work for the government? Do you know how people are promoted and hired? I have limited experience and its crazy. I dont see how the president can control every position at every level. Now of course FEMA is important, but they are not a first responder. Even the mayor admitted today that "if he would have known it would take over 2-3 days."

Now everyone is taking blame for their defaults. The problem is an area the size of Great Britian was destroyed!!! No matter what was done differently there was only so much that could have been done.

I love how experts who have never worked at any level of the government responce system know everything. I guess its just like the smart political science student who knows more about war then the generals with 40 years experience.

I love how a “leader” hires a perfect nimcompoop and somehow the people that love this leader have to attack everything around this guy. Tell me why Brown was a good hire for FEMA? Was it his resume? Was it his experience? What was it???

[quote=noggin]I love how a "leader" hires a perfect nimcompoop and somehow the people that love this leader have to attack everything around this guy. Tell me why Brown was a good hire for FEMA? Was it his resume? Was it his experience? What was it??????[/quote]

Sounds to me like you attacked Brown and the facts were pointed out to you. It's funny how there were massive failures at the city and state level, the people responsible as planners an first responders but the guy that gets attacked over it all is the one that's not even supposed to be on the gorund helping for 72 hours.

Could it be the purpose behind the attacks had little if anything to do with the situation but were only all about hating Bush?

I'm not full of sh*t if that's what your suggesting. In fact, I'm attaching a picture taken by US Naval Officers of Mexican Marines in Biloxi. I couldn't find a picture of a "Mexican Blackhawk" but I think this makes my point that our military assets and personnel are streched too thin.

www.news.navy.mil

Image: 050912-N-6925C-005.jpg

Description: President George W. Bush conveys his gratitude to a marine from the Federal Republic of Mexico, on their clean up efforts.

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050912-N-6925C-005 Gulfport, Miss. (Sept. 12, 2005) - President George W. Bush conveys his gratitude to a marine from the Federal Republic of Mexico, on their clean up efforts at 28 Street Elementary School in Biloxi, Miss. President Bush is currently visiting the Gulf Coast region to assess the damage and disaster recovery efforts from Hurricane Katrina. The Mexican Navy is assisting the U.S. Navy in providing humanitarian assistance to victims of Hurricane Katrina. The Navy's involvement in the humanitarian assistance operations are being led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in conjunction with the Department of Defense. U.S. Navy photo by Senior Chief Photographer's Mate Thomas Coffelt (RELEASED)

I'm not full of sh*t if that's what your suggesting. In fact, I'm attaching a picture taken by US Naval Officers of Mexican Marines in Biloxi. I couldn't find a picture of a "Mexican Blackhawk" but I think this makes my point that our military assets and personnel are streched too thin.

www.news.navy.mil

[/quote]

https://navcms.news.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=200 26

The 75 Mexican marines arrived Sept. 8 via U.S. Landing Craft, Utility (LCU), and Dutch Sailors were transported via a U.S. Landing Craft, Air Cushion (LCAC). Both the Mexican and Dutch militaries have ships operating in the Gulf of Mexico in support of the ongoing hurricane relief effort.

Your comment caught my interest because I didn't think the Mexican military had Blackhawks. I still don't think they have any. I think you misunderstood the size and scope of the Mexican (and Dutch, which you didn't mention) effort.

We didn't "borrow" anything from them and we wouldn't need to. They offered manpower. Would you have prefered that we refuse their help? There's nothing going on in LA or MS that speaks to a our military being stretched too thin.

That line was used right after the hurricane when critics said we didn't have enough military there because they were in Iraq. That proved to be false (less than 30% of the LA Guard is in Iraq, less than 15% of our total military) as did the claims that the levee broke due to Bush budget cuts.

“Mike: were you at all surprised to hear about the Mexican marines involved in Biloxi? Or were you more interested in correcting my comment about Blackhawks, specifically? I can't tell.”<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Your claim that we “had to borrow” helicopters the Mexicans don’t even have send up my BS detector. As it turned out the situation wasn’t anywhere near what you claimed.

”The Bush administration asked a federal claims court on November 26, 2002 to seal documents relating to hundreds of cases of autism allegedly caused by a mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, used in childhood vaccines.”

We’re not going down the road with RFK Jr that thimerosal causes childhood autism despite all the evidence to the contrary, are we? It’s junk science at it’s worst.

Try this one for size. Canada ended the use of thimerosal in all vaccines over a decade ago. Guess how that effected their childhood autism rates? Not one tiny bit.

We can’t have the conspiracy loons and the trial lawyers run vaccine makers out of business with the sort of bogus lawsuits used against the makers of breast implants.

relating to hundreds of cases of autism allegedly caused by a mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, used in childhood vaccines.

There is no credible evidence that vaccines to prevent otherwise communiciable and serious diseases causes autism

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/18/health/main618142. shtml

The protection from frivulous (sp?) and unfounded lawsuits for the drug companies is also to protect the rest of us by allowing vaccines to be produced in adequate quantities and at reasonable prices. An example of the damage that can be done by these types of lawsuits is shown in the lack of this years flu vaccine supply. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/05/health/main647481. shtml

Because of costly lawsuits companies in the US have declined that produce vaccines. According to the above article there were 24 comanies producing 20 years ago and now there are only two, one of which was shut down because of problems in their European plant. One company is not enough to supply the world with vaccines. Companies are NOT going to put their heads on a legal chopping block and lose money when they can avoid lawsuits by NOT producing certain products. As an investment advisor, who I assume sells stocks as well, you should understand this relationship between profit, lawsuits and government protection from lawsuits. It really has nothing to do with some sort of evil plan by Bush and Satan, oops I mean Carl Rove. It is purely good economic and public health policy to pass legistation that encourages the production of vaccines that can save millions of lives.

If it does turn out that a small percentage of children develop autism (which I believe is pure bull) then that can be considered acceptable losses when compared to millions of others who are helped and saved.

The connections between the Bush administration and the pharmaceutical company are extensive. Eli Lilly’s chairman and CEO, Sidney Taurel, was recently given a seat on the president’s Advisory Council on Homeland Security and Mitch Daniels, former president of Lilly’s North American operations, is currently the White House budget director. Former president George Bush sat on Eli Lilly’s board of directors.

So effing what? It means that they understand the dynamics of the production of drugs much better than some political hack who wants to curry favor with the lastest bleeding heart cause d'jour.

When and if the big bird flu epidemic occurs which is expected to have a 50% mortality, I hope to hell we have vaccines available and that production wasn't held up by a bunch of lawsuits. This isn't just about politics and whether you like GBush. It is about people's lives.

"The connections between the Bush administration and the pharmaceutical company are extensive. Eli Lilly’s chairman and CEO, Sidney Taurel, was recently given a seat on the president’s Advisory Council on Homeland Security and Mitch Daniels, former president of Lilly’s North American operations, is currently the White House budget director. Former president George Bush sat on Eli Lilly’s board of directors."

Uh...Mitch Daniels is currently governor of Indiana...y'all need to do more fact checking when you speak with such authority.

Mikebutler- I asked very simple questions and you couldn’t answer them so you did what any 6th grader does you attacked my viewpoint. I will repeat my questions again so that you can ignore them again. Why was Mike Brown a good hire? Was it is glowing resume? Was it his experience??? BTW, I voted for both Reagan and Bush…